House of crimes
Scene of 2023 double murder being used by criminals to stash loot
MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Just over a year after a mother and her son were found murdered in a house in Providence, Manchester, police returned to the same house Sunday night to recover loot, including poker boxes, taken from a bar by armed criminals earlier.
According to the police, Sunday night’s raid of the now — abandoned house was their fourth since the 2023 double murder, as they had cause
— during their investigations of that and other crimes
— to go to the house which was being used by criminals to stash stolen goods.
On Sunday the police went to the house shortly after three of four men suspected of robbing a bar and its patrons in Fine Grass, near Christiana, were nabbed during a roadblock.
A police source said about 9:00 pm four men, two of whom were armed, entered the bar and held up patrons, stealing three cellphones, money, liquor, and poker boxes. The men escaped in a waiting car.
The police were alerted and the area cordoned off with roadblocks. A Toyota Voxy was intercepted and three of the four men arrested.
Police said two of the men are 23 years old while the other is 19 years old. They also said a firearm was seized.
A manhunt has been launched for the fourth suspect.
On January 3, 2023, Althea Rowe, 52, and her 35-year-old son Cleon Palmer were found with gunshot wounds at the house in Providence district.
A senior police source at the time had told the Jamaica Observer that Palmer was wanted for shooting incidents in Manchester and had managed to elude the police in several operations. He reportedly fled to the northern parishes of Trelawny and St James.
The source said, unknown to the police, Palmer returned to Manchester and was living at the house which is in a secluded section of Providence.
Police believe Palmer’s criminal lifestyle was a factor in his demise and the killing of his mother. Investigators theorised that the two were killed on New Year’s Eve in 2022.
Meanwhile, the seizure of the firearm on Sunday came after the police swooped down on an illegal party about 1:30 Sunday morning in Cross Keys, Manchester, arresting two men, including the owner of the premises, and charging them with breaching the Noise Abatement Act.
One of the men, age 26, was also charged with illegal possession of marijuana.
The police also said they searched the venue and found a 9mm Smith and Wesson firearmwith seven rounds.
